Shivon Zilis is a name tied to cutting-edge technology and recent headlines. Born February 8, 1986, in Markham, Ontario, Canada, she has Punjabi Indian ancestry through her mother, Sharda, and a Caucasian Canadian father, Richard. Her early years included a notable stint as a competitive ice hockey player. She earned a scholarship to Yale University, graduating in 2008 with degrees in economics and philosophy. During her time there, she played goalie for the women’s ice hockey team, setting a school record for the best goals-against average.
Post-Yale, Zilis began her career at IBM in New York, focusing on financial technology for developing nations like Peru and Indonesia. Her work involved mobile banking solutions for small businesses. By 2012, she shifted to venture capital, becoming a founding investor at Bloomberg Beta, a fund supported by Bloomberg L.P. There, she concentrated on machine intelligence, an early interest that shaped her trajectory. From 2017 to 2019, she worked at Tesla as a project director, contributing to the Autopilot system and chip design.
Currently, Zilis serves as Director of Operations and Special Projects at Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company, a role she’s held since 2017. Her career also includes significant recognition: Forbes named her to its 30 Under 30 list in venture capital in 2015, and LinkedIn listed her among its 35 Under 35. She served on OpenAI’s board until 2023 and joined the board of Shield AI in 2023, a defense technology company she had previously invested in.
Her personal life intersects with Musk as well. Court documents from Texas revealed that Zilis and Musk had twins, Strider and Azure, via IVF in November 2021. In 2024, reports confirmed a third child with Musk, though no name has been disclosed. This makes 12 children total for Musk. The two share an address in Austin, according to legal filings, and their connection dates back to at least 2016, when they crossed paths through OpenAI.
Zilis’s professional focus remains on artificial intelligence and innovation. She has described Musk as a key influence, though details of their relationship beyond parenthood are sparse. At 39, she balances her role at Neuralink with raising four children. Her background in sports, tech, and venture capital marks her as a figure of interest in both Silicon Valley and beyond.
This is the rundown on Shivon Zilis—tech leader, Musk collaborator, and a name worth watching.
A Fourth Child with Musk: Seldon Lycurgus
On February 28, 2025, Zilis announced the birth of her fourth child with Elon Musk, a son named Seldon Lycurgus. The revelation came through a post on X, where she described the newborn as “built like a juggernaut, with a solid heart of gold.”
No exact birth date was specified, but the timing aligned with the first birthday of their daughter Arcadia, born February 28, 2024, suggesting a deliberate announcement strategy. Musk responded to the news with a heart emoji, a minimal but clear affirmation of his role as the father. This addition brings Musk’s total number of children to 14, born to four different women over the past two decades.
The name Seldon Lycurgus carries weight and hints at the couple’s intellectual leanings. “Seldon” likely references Hari Seldon, the fictional psychohistorian from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, a nod to predictive science and grand-scale thinking—themes Musk often champions. “Lycurgus,” meanwhile, evokes the legendary Spartan lawgiver credited with shaping a militaristic society, suggesting a blend of strength and structure.
This naming pattern echoes their earlier choices, like Strider and Azure for their twins born in November 2021, and aligns with Musk’s habit of selecting unconventional names, as seen with his other children like X Æ A-12 and Exa Dark Sideræl.
Zilis and Musk’s connection stretches back to at least 2016, when they met through OpenAI, a research organization she helped govern as a board member until 2023. Their professional ties deepened with her move to Neuralink in 2017, where she oversees operations and special projects under Musk’s broader vision of merging human cognition with artificial intelligence.
The birth of their twins in 2021, followed by Arcadia in 2024 and now Seldon Lycurgus, indicates a sustained personal partnership alongside their work. Court filings from Texas list them at the same Austin address, though neither has elaborated on the nature of their relationship beyond co-parenting.
This fourth child arrives amid Musk’s ongoing push to expand his family, a goal he’s tied to concerns about population decline—a recurring theme in his public statements. Zilis, for her part, has remained focused on her career, steering Neuralink’s efforts to develop brain implants while managing an increasingly complex family life. Their three prior children—twins Strider and Azure, and daughter Arcadia—were also born via in vitro fertilization, a detail revealed in earlier legal documents. Seldon Lycurgus likely follows the same path, though no confirmation has surfaced.
The growing brood hasn’t shifted Zilis’s public profile much. She rarely grants interviews, preferring to let her work at Neuralink and past ventures—like her time at Bloomberg Beta or Tesla—speak for themselves. Musk, meanwhile, juggles his role at Neuralink with leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, and other ventures, maintaining a high-profile presence that contrasts with Zilis’s lower-key approach.
Their fourth child further cements a dynamic that blends cutting-edge tech with an unconventional family structure, rooted in shared interests and a long-standing association.
